We investigate the impact of procurement thresholds on strategic behavior of public buyers in Sweden. We document signs of “bunching” at the threshold, which suggests that strategic behavior in procurement is potentially important in Sweden, and should not be overlooked in the on-going public debate on the procurement thresholds. At the same time, data limitations do not allow us to access the impact of this strategic behavior on procurement outcomes and efficiency. This calls for better and more extensive procurement data collection.

1. The Forum for Research on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies (FREE) is a network of academic experts on economic
issues in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at BEROC (Minsk), BICEPS (Riga), CEFIR (Moscow), CenEA
(Szczecin), KEI (Kiev) and SITE (Stockholm). The weekly FREE Policy Brief Series provides research-based analyses of
economic policy issues relevant to Eastern Europe and emerging markets.
FREE Policy Brief Series
Public Procurement Thresholds in
Sweden
Elena Paltseva and Giancarlo Spagnolo, SITE
April 2015
We investigate the impact of procurement thresholds on strategic behavior of public buyers in Sweden.
We document signs of “bunching” at the threshold, which suggests that strategic behavior in
procurement is potentially important in Sweden, and should not be overlooked in the on-going public
debate on the procurement thresholds. At the same time, data limitations do not allow us to access the
impact of this strategic behavior on procurement outcomes and efficiency. This calls for better and
more extensive procurement data collection.
Thresholds in Public
Procurement Regulation
The impact of public procurement regulation
on the incentives of public buyers and
resulting procurement outcomes has recently
become the focus of both political and
academic debates. This interest is not
surprising. Public procurement has been
playing an important role in economic life. For
example, the annual value of public
procurement purchases in the EU is around 2.5
trillion Euros, which constitutes about one
fifth of the EU GDP (with figures for
individual Member States ranging from 9 to
30%, EC (2012)).
Many national and international procurement
regulations specify different procedures and
requirements for deals with an estimated value
exceeding/falling short of certain “thresholds”.
For example, the EU Public Procurement
Directives establish that national tenders with
expected value above certain thresholds should
be publicized at EU level and procured in line
with the common EU-wide rules. Regulations
for above-the-threshold procurements are
typically associated with stronger demands on
the transparency of the procurement procedure
and a more rigorously regulated procurement
format. As a result, there is a potential
incentive for a public procuring entity to
manipulate the value of the tender to stay
below the threshold and avoid these additional
demands.
This manipulation does not imply negative
consequences for the procurement outcomes
per se. Public buyers may use the additional
discretion arising from setting the value below
the threshold to avoid administrative costs, and
to make the procurement process faster and
potentially more efficient. At the same time,
public buyers may use the looser regulation
below the threshold to reduce supplier
competition (e.g., by limiting tender
advertising), or to facilitate corrupt
procurement deals with specific pre-chosen
contractors. In either case, the thresholds can
potentially give rise to strategic behavior of
the public procurers.

2. 2 Forum for Research on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies
However, little is known empirically about the
extent of this behavior, and, more generally,
about the impact of procurement thresholds on
procurement outcomes. Coviello and
Mariniello (2014), and Coviello, Guglielmo
and Spagnolo (2014) use regulatory thresholds
to study the effects of regulation – advertising
rules and ability to use restricted auctions,
respectively – on the outcomes of public
procurement in Italy. The latter study also
finds evidence of value manipulation around
the threshold but only in some industries, such
as road construction. Palguta and Pertold
(2014), and Jascisens (2014) document
manipulation of project value to avoid
thresholds for Czech Republic and Latvia
respectively, and show that this manipulation
is likely to be associated with corrupt behavior
and favoritism.
In the case of Sweden, public procurement
regulation sets two types of thresholds. First, it
stipulates that all public purchases above a
certain relatively low threshold must be
announced in a local public database, and
prescribes the procurement procedures for
these purchases. In turn, it requires that the
purchases exceeding the EU-wide (and higher)
thresholds should be managed according to the
above-mentioned EU Directive rules.
There is not much known empirically on the
effect of thresholds in Swedish procurement.
The recent Swedish debate on where to set
procurement thresholds has mostly addressed
the issue of the administration costs associated
with more transparent procedures above the
threshold(s), see e.g. Molander (2009, 2013).
However, the above arguments and evidence
calls for an investigation of strategic
consequences of the thresholds in Sweden.
Thresholds and Strategic in
Procurement Behavior in
Sweden
In this brief, we summarize the results of our
study (Bobylev et al. (2015)) aimed at
assessing threshold-driven strategic behavior
of public buyers in Sweden.
We use OPIC, the proprietary database
covering most of the Swedish public
procurement tenders, kindly provided by its
owner and maintainer, Visma Commerces AB
(hereafter Visma), to see whether there are any
signs of ”bunching” – i.e. of unusually high
concentration – of Swedish tenders below the
EU-wide procurement thresholds. The
database contains information both on tenders
above and below the EU-threshold; however,
there are certain difficulties in using these data
for the above-mentioned purpose. In
particular, the EU Public Procurement
Directives thresholds, and the corresponding
part of the Swedish procurement regulation,
are explicitly formulated in terms of the
estimated value of the procurement tenders.
Thus, value manipulation behavior of public
buyers should be revealed by their choice of
the expected procurement value around the
threshold. However, OPIC (or any other
database on Swedish procurement) does not
contain/collect this estimated value for neither
below- nor above-threshold deals. We
circumvent this complication by basing our
analysis on the actual, realized tender value,
which should be highly correlated with the
estimated value.
We start the analysis by providing illustrative
histograms of tender values around the
relevant thresholds. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate
the distribution of tender value for
procurements in supplies and services, and in
public works, respectively. The sample is also
split by the type of public buyer: central
authorities vs. other public entities.

3. 3Forum for Research on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies
Figure 1. Histograms of Tender Values,
Supplies and Services
Source: Authors’ own calculations based on VISMA
data.
Figure 2. Histograms of Tender Values, and
Public Works
Source: Authors’ own calculations based on VISMA
data.
The red vertical line corresponds to the EU
procurement threshold (which differs for
procurement in supplies and services, and in
public works, and across the central vs. non-
central authorities).
These histograms suggest that there are signs
of bunching below threshold – for example,
the graph for central government procurement
in supplies and services shows a spike just
below the threshold, and that for public works
and other contracting authorities seems to
present irregular drop just after the threshold.
We proceed by formally testing for the
presence of distribution discontinuity at the
threshold by using a density test technique as
in McCrary (2008). Effectively, this test
smoothens the histogram using linear
regression separately to the left and to the right
of the discontinuity point. If we detect a
discontinuity, this may be indicative of
systematic manipulation of procurement
values by public buyers.
The graphs in Figure 3 present our resulting
smoothers and associated 90% confidence
intervals (which corresponds to testing the
bunching hypothesis at 10% significance
level). We normalize the value of tenders
attributed to each of the thresholds at the
threshold itself; therefore, discontinuity, if any,
should be expected at zero.
The results of the test are in line with earlier
histograms. There is certain discontinuity in
the procurement distributions; it is especially
evident, and statistically significant at 10%, in
procurement of supplies and services
undertaken by central government buyers. In
other words, we find significant strategic
bunching, although non-universally across the
types of public buyers/types of procurement.
The next logical step would be to analyze the
effects of this strategic bunching at the
threshold on the outcomes of the public
procurement, such as the quality of the tenders
or competitiveness of the process. However,
systematic data on procurement outcomes in
Sweden are currently not available, preventing
us from accessing the consequences of this
bunching.
Conclusion
We investigated the effect of thresholds on
public procurement in Sweden, and have
found signs of strategic bunching of public
buyers at the EU thresholds. In other words,
procurement thresholds affect not only the
associated transaction costs, but also the
strategic behavior of procuring entities, a point
overlooked in the current Swedish debate on
public procurement.

4. 4 Forum for Research on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies
This strategic behavior may potentially have
serious implications for the procurement
outcomes, and, more generally, societal well-
being. However, current limitations of data
made us stop short of investigating these
implications. The above arguments thus call
for more and better procurement data
collection in Sweden.
▪
Figure 3. McCrary Density Tests for Supplies and Services, and Public Works
Source: Our own calculations based on VISMA data.
References
Bobilev, R., Guglielmo, A., Paltseva, E. and Spagnolo,
G. (2015). ”Public Procurement Thresholds and Data in
Sweden”, KKV Report 2015:3,
http://www.kkv.se/globalassets/publikationer/uppdragsfo
rskning/forsk_rap_2015_3.pdf
Coviello, D., and Mariniello, M. (2014). "Publicity
requirements in public procurement: Evidence from a
regression discontinuity design." Journal of Public
Economics 109, pp. 76-100.
Coviello, D., Guglielmo, A., and Spagnolo, G. (2014).
“The Effect of Discretion on Procurement Performance“
Mimeo
European Commission (2012), “Public Procurement
Indicators 2011”,
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/d
ocs/modernising_rules/public-procurement-indicators-
2011_en.pdf
Jascisens, V. (2014). “To Divide or Not - Threshold
Effects in the Below Threshold Procurement in Latvia“,
Mimeo
Molander, P. (2009). “Regelverk och praxis i offentlig
upphandling”. Rapport till Expertgruppen för studier i
offentlig ekonomi, 2009:2. Finansdepartementet.
Molander, P. (2013). ”Höjd nivå för upphandling blir
dyrt för skattebetalarna”. Dagens Nyheter 11 May
Palguta, Ján, and Filip Pertold (2014). "Corruption and
Manipulation of Public Procurement: Evidence from the
Introduction of Discretionary Thresholds." Mimeo

5. 5Forum for Research on Eastern Europe and Emerging Economies
Giancarlo Spagnolo
Stockholm Institute of
Transition Economics (SITE)
Giancarlo.Spagnolo@hhs.se
https://sites.google.com/sit
e/giancarlospagnoloshomepage/
Giancarlo Spagnolo (M.Phil. Cambridge;
Ph.D., Stockholm School of Economics) is
Senior Research Fellow at SITE – Stockholm
School of Economics and Professor of
Economics (on leave) at University of Rome
II. He is also research affiliate of CEPR, EIEF
and ENCORE. His main competences and
interests are in Antitrust and Anti-corruption
Policies, Banking and Corporate Governance,
Game and Contract Theory, Industrial
Organization, eCommerce and Procurement
Design and Management. He has published
widely quoted scientific articles in these fields
and co-edited Cambridge University Press’s
Handbook of Procurement (under translation
in Russian). He has also been consulting for
many national and international institutions
(including the World Bank, the EU Parliament
and the EC DG Comp and EcFin) on antitrust,
procurement and corruption issues, and for
several private corporations on the design and
management of procurement and reputational
mechanisms.
Elena Paltseva
Stockholm Institute of
Transition Economics (SITE)
Elena.Paltseva@hhs.se
http://www.paltseva.com
Elena Paltseva is a Research Fellow at SITE,
Stockholm School of Economics and a
Visiting Professor in Economics at the New
Economic School, Russia. She received her
PhD in Economics from Stockholm School of
Economics in 2006.
Paltseva’s main research interests are Political
Economics, Applied Microeconomics and
Industrial Organization.